Squeak, left, and Pip, right, came out of one egg, according to owner Kelly Brotz of Sheboygan, Wednesday, March 6, 2019, in Sheboygan, Wis. According to Brotz, it is a rare event in the duck world. Gary C. Klein/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Squeak, left, and Pip, right, came out of one egg, according to owner Kelly Brotz of Sheboygan, Wednesday, March 6, 2019, in Sheboygan, Wis. According to Brotz, it is a rare event in the duck world. Gary C. Klein/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

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SHEBOYGAN - When Kelly Brotz first got an egg incubator last year for her daughter's pet duck, she didn't know if it would even work.

But it did work, and the family has successfully brought almost a dozen ducks into the world. In fact, it worked so well that this past weekend, she says the unexpected happened: One of the eggs produced twin ducks.

This is a rare occurrence, with only a few reported cases from around the world of two ducklings surviving from one egg.

Meet Pip and Squeak

The ducklings were born on March 2, Brotz said. Initially, she saw the first duckling, orange-beaked Pip, pop its head out of the egg. A couple hours later, she said, she came back and saw the duckling still struggling to get out of the shell, so she helped it a bit.

As she was moving the shell, however, she noticed that it was a little heavier than usual. When she looked inside, she said, she saw that there was another little duckling at the bottom. It turned out to be pink-beaked Squeak.

"There's not a lot of room in there," Brotz said. The egg was just about half a size bigger than a normal egg when she held it in her hand.

She and her son, who was there with her, were shocked. She immediately went to a poultry Facebook group and asked her fellow duck owners if they'd had similar experiences. It turns out, they told her, twin ducks are very rare.

"I intervened when I wasn't supposed to but that's probably one of the reasons they actually survived," she said.

A photo that Kelly Brotz took of Pip and Squeak right after hatching last week, Saturday, March 2, 2019, in Sheboygan, Wis.(Photo: Kelly Brotz/submitted)

Josh Jackl, a Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist, said the chances of twin ducks surviving in the wild is not high.

"If there's two ducks competing for the same nutrients in one egg, that's going to put them at a disadvantage after they hatch to survive in the wild," he said.

Although these ducks were born in someone's home, there are still few reported cases of twin ducklings surviving even as pets.

Animal lover welcomes ducklings to the family

A teacher at Cooper Elementary and mom to four human kiddos, Brotz is just ecstatic about Pip and Squeak joining the family.

"I get so excited about this stuff," she said. "I said, 'This is why I'm always going to be a good teacher, because I'm never going to grow up!"

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Kelly Brotz holds Pip, left and Squeak, right, Wednesday, March 6, 2019, in Sheboygan, Wis. Brotz said the pair were hatched from one egg shell.(Photo: Gary C. Klein/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

In her second-grade classroom, Brotz has three ducks, a guinea pig and a snake. At home, she has a number of animals including seven other ducks, a dog, a tortoise, a snake and a couple guinea pigs.

Right now, though, she spends a lot of energy gushing over Pip and Squeak. As she showed them off around her living room, the ducklings followed her around like any babies would. They chirped and hopped, always right behind their human mom.